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“I am the vine, you are the branches,” says Jesus. That’s the “take away” quote from this passage. But as I mused on this Scripture this week, I found myself caught up in other thoughts. For instance …
In thinking about vines and branches, why did I not memorize as a child, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower?” Were my Sunday School teachers afraid that it might get them into the dreaded “trinity” conversation? Was it too removed from talking about me, a personal connection? No matter. As an adult, I take comfort in this larger world view. I may be the branch, and Jesus the vine. But there is also a vinegrower—one in charge of the whole vineyard—however you want to envision that. Maybe this allows for other vines with other branches, just like the image of the Shepherd, our Shepherd who has sheep in another fold earlier in the gospel of John, (John 10:16). But we leave all that to the vinegrower. As for us, too often we forget we live in God’s garden.
Another thought that caught me was this idea of pruning. Now none of us is jumping up and down asking to be pruned. I think we associate pruning with being cut off and maybe thrown away. We like things the way they are. We like ourselves the way we are. And it takes so much effort to change. And it might be painful. So, no thanks to the pruning suggestion.
Yet, any gardener knows—you have to prune to have healthy plants, in fact they are more abundant in producing fruit or blooms when they are pruned. Otherwise their energies are too widely dispersed. When I looked up pruning vines, (let’s say grape vines—since I’ve always associated grapes with this passage, I guess because it often is used in communion settings)—I found that you are supposed to prune 75-90% of the vine! Wow. Can you imagine pruning 75-90% of yourself?
What does this mean? How do we get pruned? And what do we prune? Another image from Scripture jumps into my mind. The familiar passage from Malachi 3 used in Messiah “For [God] is like a refiner’s fire… He will purify the sons of Levi.”
Somehow being pruned, going through the fire, makes us stronger, makes us “more pure,” makes us productive. As my lectionary colleagues and I were talking about this text, we wondered, what would this mean for us as churches? Do we need to take a look at what is dead wood—in our activities, in our worship, in our mental constructs of what is “church”? Can we think about new life, or more fruit, if we aren’t willing to give some things up—cast some things aside—cut out whatever isn’t helping the cause, or bearing fruit. This is a discussion that a healthy institution must have. An ongoing pruning, so to speak.
And the last thought that would not let me go was the word “Abide.” In these eight verses it is used 8 times! Abide. It’s an old fashioned word, linked to one of the “most popular hymns of the English language”—“Abide with me.” (28 Hymns to Sing Before You Die, John Mulder and F. Morgan Roberts, p. 179). Abide means staying near. Jesus is very insistent on keeping a close connection with his disciples, with us. The image of the vine helps. For the branches of a vine, of any plant, are intrinsically tied to the trunk, the main stem that is rooted in the ground, and provides the conduit for sustenance.
Sometimes we think we are strong enough, big enough, mature enough, to go off on our own. We even call this “branching off.” But it doesn’t happen in nature. A branch detached from the vine, separated from its source dies. Jesus was giving us a hint. Don’t go too far away from me. We are bound together.
And in case we get a little high on ourselves, we are brought back to reality. We are only one branch out of many. But together we make a plant. Together we produce fruit. After all, the words are “I am the vine, you are the branches” not “you are the branch!” This is not an individual image, but a communal one.
How appropriate then that we use it at the Lord’s Table. To remind ourselves:
--That we live in God’s Garden, and God is the vine grower.
--That God provides food for the journey, and drink to the thirsty, even as we are pruned and refined and made new.
--That we need our connection to the true vine, to Jesus. We are the branches. We together with Jesus are tasked with producing fruit, with helping to comfort, feed, and heal our world.
What an overwhelming task that is. But God intends for us to do our part. And God will tend to us, like a vine grower who loves the vines in the vineyard.
May it be so, Alleluia, Amen.
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